Senators sign Shane Pinto to four-year extension

The Ottawa Senators have signed center Shane Pinto to a four-year, $30M contract extension. The deal will run through the 2029-30 season.

The deal will carry a yearly cap hit of $7.5M and carry through two years of Pinto’s unrestricted free agent eligibility. That yearly salary is a full $1M over the number believed to have been offered to Pinto on an eight-year extension before the start of the season. There was reason to believe Pinto wasn’t satisfied with that previous offer per Ottawa Citizen’s Bruce Garrioch.

Pinto’s contract will also mark a new baseline for other young, emerging centers across the league. He has been a true force for the Senators this season, stepping up as a much-needed second-line center and posting 14 points in 17 games, the third-most on the team. The scoring is a major surge forward from the 37 points he scored in 70 games last season, but it doesn’t seem unsustainable. Pinto has recorded a career-high 17.4 shooting percentage this year – 0.9 percent more than he managed last year, and 4.2 percent higher than the 13.4 percent he’s averaged since 2023. But he has also performed in-line with his expected-goals (7.0 xG to eight goals), suggesting that his step in scoring comes from true improvements.

Finding the balance between properly rewarding a young star without overcommitting was the challenge that Ottawa faced. In market value, Pinto seemed to land somewhere between the likes of Marco Rossi (Minnesota, three-years, $15M) and Connor Zary (Calgary ,three-years, $11.325M) and Frank Nazar (Chicago, seven-years, $46.13M) and Mason McTavish (Anaheim, six-years, $42M). The deal Ottawa has delivered suggests exactly that, placing Pinto closer to the former in term but the latter in yearly and total salary. This move also continues the trend of young centers signing shorter-term deals, potentially setting the NHL up for exciting free agencies in a few years.

More than setting his market price, this deal will cement a deep connection between Ottawa and Pinto. The two sides have seen their fair share of ups-and-downs since Pinto was selected 32nd-overall in the 2019 NHL Draft. After netting 59 points in 56 games of his sole USHL season, Pinto moved to the University of North Dakota for his underclass years. He posted 60 points in 61 games with the Fighting Hawks, and turned pro with Ottawa at the end of the 2020-21 season. Pinto was a quick impact, looking capable of keeping up with NHL speed and physicality, and posting seven points in his first 12 NHL games. He seemed well set up for a breakout campaign in 2021-22, but missed nearly the entire season with a shoulder injury suffered in the fourth game of the season. He tried to return from the injury a few games later, but reinjured his shoulder and got knocked out of the season.